Some of the world`s most memorable quotes

"People said he was deviant and effeminate (but) he was a sound man like all of us ... He was ill, weak, walked on a cane."

PARIS, February 19, 2010 (AFP) - Some of the best quotes of the week from around the world:

FRIENDLY FIRE

"As soon as the Taliban come here we leave, it's safer ... They are firing on you from our farms and you're shooting back".

-- Afghan civilian near the southern Afghan town of Marjah, at the start of Operation Mushtarak, the first major offensive of President Barack Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan.

SUPREME LEADER

"The most outstanding political elder and the peerlessly brilliant commander of the present era."

-- Senior North Korean officials assess leader Kim Jong-Il on the eve of his 68th birthday.

NO SHADOW OF A DOUBT

"Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of Mabhuh. It is 99 percent, if not 100 percent that Mossad is standing behind the murder."

-- Dubai Police Chief Dhahi Khalfan on his suspicions that Israel's spy agency was behind the assassination of a Hamas commander in the emirate.

COMPLETELY NORMAL

"People said he was deviant and effeminate (but) he was a sound man like all of us ... He was ill, weak, walked on a cane. When he was 19, and got malaria, he fell, how we don't know, maybe he fell in the bathroom," he said. "When he fell, and was weak from malaria, he died."

-- Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's antiquities service, on the legendary boy-king Tutankhamun.

TRAGEDY ON THE ICE

"Our hearts are broken. He was so young, his whole life was ahead of him."

-- David Kumaritashvili, father of Georgia's Winter Olympian Nodar Kumaritashvili, who was killed in a crash on the luge track.

RAIL TERROR

"The shock was terrifying, it knocked us down like ninepins."

-- A survivor of a head-on train collions outside Brussels which killed 18.

SPRING TIME, OR SUMMER?

"According to information we have, they (Israel) are seeking to start a war next spring or summer, although their decision is not final yet."

-- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claiming that Israel plans to launch a war on an unknown target.

FIRE AND WATER

"Unfortunately, there is too much fire and no water for Obama this year."

-- Peter So, one of Hong Kong's celebrity feng shui masters, says he expects a disappointing year for President Barack Obama in the Year of the Tiger.